'88 L Street/Track Build- Coilovers • B6ZE • Weber DCOE's • Widebody • Chopped Top •

[william]

That's sad to see but could have been much worse.
Did you have an extinguisher?
Ever since my dad's truck burnt that had worried me .
I keep a pwc extinguisher with me it's small but if I get to it quickly it could save a car.

[sketchman]

Nice looking stuff.

210 hp 2.3 NA?

[theastronaut]

That's sad to see but could have been much worse.
Did you have an extinguisher?
Ever since my dad's truck burnt that had worried me .
I keep a pwc extinguisher with me it's small but if I get to it quickly it could save a car.

I didn't have an extinguisher. I took my shirt off to smother the initial flames, and I had left the car cover in the back seat so I pulled it out and stuffed it all around the header. A guy I knew from car shows happened to be driving by right as it happened, thankfully he stopped to help. There was a church about 1/8th mile away so he drove me there and I ran in the side door (still shirtless, thankfully it was an empty hallway) to grab an extinguisher, went back and got it under control fairly well. Had to go back for a second extinguisher before the fire department arrived. There was so much oil that having a small on-board extinguisher wouldn't have helped. I will keep one on board in the future for certain, but it will be larger than the normal size usually seen under a dash or seat. I joked that I'll have a double NOS bottle holder behind the seat holding fire extinguishers after this... I'll also make sure that whatever chemical is in it isn't corrosive. I spent today tearing everything from the windshield/dash back apart today to start pressure washing the powder residue away. Its already started rusting the places that got wet from the FD spraying water, and it's starting to oxidize the carb bodies. It's been a nightmare for sure.

Nice looking stuff.

210 hp 2.3 NA?

Thanks! Yeah, 200 is fairly typical from a well built NA 2276cc or 2332cc VW engine, that's roughly 1.4 hp/ci. This one has a few extra tricks and I'll do a little more port work to the Wedgeports before they go on.

[XR2KID]

Wow the car looks great. I love the look of the escort wheels. Keep the updates coming.

[theastronaut]

Wow the car looks great. I love the look of the escort wheels. Keep the updates coming.

Thanks!!

I bought everything to completely redo the front brakes. Also bought a water temp sender and a valve cover gasket. It's developed a slight wheel bearing noise between 35-40 mph and the right front caliper is leaking. I've put a little over 10,000 miles on it since July, and ever since the suspension has been done they haven't been easy miles.

I decided to stay with stock festiva brakes for now. I've measured 1.06g braking on a semi-damp road with the old pads and rotors which look fairly rough. Since I'm only autocrossing or driving on the street I don't feel that it needs "better" brakes since I'm not having fade issues and the brakes will lock up the Achilles tires at will at normal speeds. My old Conquest with upgraded four wheel disc and decently sticky rubber would only pull .98g.

[Advancedynamix]

Yeah, with properly maintained components, these cars stop really well. Those little 12" tires are the weak link with the stock brakes, that's for sure.

[theastronaut]

I sometimes get irritated with the early VW community for bashing the stock drum brake system. I have completely gone through the entire brake system on my '64 and with good tires it pulls .97g from 60 mph. They will fade a little stopping from 70+ mph but with 40-60 hp you don't really ever go over 70. Most guys use skinny, rock-hard 135/80, 145/80 or 165/80 tires up front and complain that it "doesn't brake well". They'll throw aftermarket disc on it and say that it has better pedal feel but you never hear them say that it stops any better... wonder why that is!? I have 195/50's up front and wouldn't go back to skinny tires unless it's a dead stock car and it needs to be as stock as possible. I've seen festiva guys make the same comments; it's a tire problem, not a brake problem.

[Advancedynamix]

I have out braked newer Porsche cars on the track with a festiva that had original brakes and suspension, but had modern 165/45-15 tires. The stock brakes do require more pedal effort than upgraded parts, and on a road coarse the solid rotors overheat faster, but they work pretty good. The captured rotor design not a great one of you plan on lots of hard braking. It requires wheel bearing changes whenever the rotors are replaced.
Upgrading to a miata master/booster will help dramatically with the pedal effort. I prefer the NB master cylinder.

[theastronaut]

I stuck a NA booster and M/C on it already. Much easier to control it from locking up right at the limit. Next mod is to add a Rio rack and pinion.

[shorestiva]

I have out braked newer Porsche cars on the track with a festiva that had original brakes and suspension, but had modern 165/45-15 tires. The stock brakes do require more pedal effort than upgraded parts, and on a road coarse the solid rotors overheat faster, but they work pretty good. The captured rotor design not a great one of you plan on lots of hard braking. It requires wheel bearing changes whenever the rotors are replaced.
Upgrading to a miata master/booster will help dramatically with the pedal effort. I prefer the NB master cylinder.

Do you know what year nb stuff your using? Seems the master cylinders are all the same but there's a difference between boosters.

Master cylinders from 90-00 are 7/8" bore. 01-05 are 15/16" bore. This size does not affect brake balance.

The proportioning valve affects brake balance. Refer to this for factory prop valve specs: http://www.flyinmiata.com/tech/stock_bpv.php

The 01-05 non-abs prop valve gives the most rearward bias of all factory valves, besides the ABS ones which are just straight through.

AFAIK, brake boosters on all NAs are the same, 99-00 might be larger, and 01-05 non-sport is definitely larger.

I have installed in my car the 02 non-abs prop valve, master cylinder, and brake booster. Some would say the NB2 sport booster is ideal for optimum pedal feel, claiming the non-sport boosters provide too much assist. I just used what I had on hand.

Swapping in the 01-05 master cylinder was pretty easy and only required bending lines by hand. BUT, you would have to swap the booster in with it too, otherwise the pushrod would require lengthening or something. I can't remember.

[Doug Brown]

Fire Extinguisher use

If you used a dry chemical fire extinguisher (ABC, Purple-K or BC powder) do NOT try and wash off the powder!!! It makes an incredible gooey mess that will stay with the car for a long time.

Simplest and quickest way of removing it is use a vacuum cleaner. NOT your wife's house vacuum, but the one you use it the shop for all the nasty stuff!!!

Any dry chemical will quickly control/extinguish a spill or PRESSURIZED flammable liquid fire - however, expect it to re-ignite until the heated metal cools off. Always turn OFF the ignition!!!

If you just do very short discharges (bursts) of 1 or 2 seconds, that will initially extinguish the fire. Keep watching, and if/when the fire re-ignites, just give it another 1-second burst. By fighting the fire in this manner, you can get about 4 to 8 very short bursts out of a 2-3/4-lb extinguish, keep the fire under control/extinguished and let the metal cool off to prevent re-ignition.

The typical 2.5 or 2.75 lb stored pressure dry chemical only discharges for a total of 10-12 seconds, so you have to know what you are doing to get the most out of it.

If you have any water, soap, soft drinks, beer - any non-flammable liquid - you can pour it onto the hot metal to help cool it off.

Any type of foam extinguisher - AFFF, AR-AFFF, Cold Fire - also works very well on a UN-PRESSURIZED flammable liquid fire. So turn off your engine/fuel pump if using foam! The foam's are mostly water (96 to 99% by weight) so they work very well in cooling the metal to prevent re-ignition.

Foam extinguishers are magic, but weigh a lot compared to dry chemicals. If you know what you are doing, you can extinguish a very large fire with dry chem.

[theastronaut]

If you used a dry chemical fire extinguisher (ABC, Purple-K or BC powder) do NOT try and wash off the powder!!! It makes an incredible gooey mess that will stay with the car for a long time.

Simplest and quickest way of removing it is use a vacuum cleaner. NOT your wife's house vacuum, but the one you use it the shop for all the nasty stuff!!!

Any dry chemical will quickly control/extinguish a spill or PRESSURIZED flammable liquid fire - however, expect it to re-ignite until the heated metal cools off. Always turn OFF the ignition!!!

If you just do very short discharges (bursts) of 1 or 2 seconds, that will initially extinguish the fire. Keep watching, and if/when the fire re-ignites, just give it another 1-second burst. By fighting the fire in this manner, you can get about 4 to 8 very short bursts out of a 2-3/4-lb extinguish, keep the fire under control/extinguished and let the metal cool off to prevent re-ignition.

The typical 2.5 or 2.75 lb stored pressure dry chemical only discharges for a total of 10-12 seconds, so you have to know what you are doing to get the most out of it.

If you have any water, soap, soft drinks, beer - any non-flammable liquid - you can pour it onto the hot metal to help cool it off.

Any type of foam extinguisher - AFFF, AR-AFFF, Cold Fire - also works very well on a UN-PRESSURIZED flammable liquid fire. So turn off your engine/fuel pump if using foam! The foam's are mostly water (96 to 99% by weight) so they work very well in cooling the metal to prevent re-ignition.

Foam extinguishers are magic, but weigh a lot compared to dry chemicals. If you know what you are doing, you can extinguish a very large fire with dry chem.

Good info, thanks for posting!! I'll definitley keep a couple extinguishers in the car from now on. The fire department used water after we had used the dry fire extinguisher so the whole thing was a mess. It came off with Purple Power sprayed thorugh a pressure washing, then scrubbing with a brush. I treated the bare metal with PPG DX579 Metal Cleaner and DX520 Metal Conditioner, and I've blasted the remaining burnt paint off with glass beads. Hoping to have the tail end of it in epoxy primer later this week.

[theastronaut]

Got the brakes finished this weekend, much better pedal effort now. I hope to never have to replace the rotors again, that was a chore! I'll swap to Aspire stuff once I get serious about tracking the car. These are working great for now with street tires.

I think I've got a busted strut mount on the driver's side. It's making noise over bumps, especially at low speeds and it looks weird under the top nut holding the coilover on. I'll pull it off tonight to check it out.


Found the source of the bearing noise.




Tip to get bearing races out easier- run a mig weld bead around the old race. The heat shrinks them and they'll pretty much fall out.







Bought a few more pieces. I had better headlight housings but had never installed them, so I dug those out and cleaned them up. Put GE Nighthawk bulbs in and also bought 100 watt bulbs to replace the 55 watt bulbs in the driving lights. With the relay harness already in the car, this is as good as the headlights are going to get unless I find a pair of e-code housings. I can easily see over 1/4 mile down the road with the high beams on so I'll probably leave them as-is.

[firebush357]

[Tip to get bearing races out easier- run a mig weld bead around the old race. The heat shrinks them and they'll pretty much fall out. ]

I thought Heat Expands Metal?

[theastronaut]

It does, but getting it that hot makes the metal shrink once it's cooled off. That's why welding "warps" sheet metal- the welded area shrinks, distorting the area around it. If steel gets hot enough to turn blue it shrinks.